Category: Movies

Moment of Joy

O Fortuna from Orff’s Carmina Burana is a joyful song. Here it is paired with a scene from Excalibur. On a mythic level, it exemplifies the sympathetic link between the king and the land (James Frazer would be so proud) as the land comes back to life with the renewal of King Arthur:

Books/Movies/TV Shows I Wouldn’t Revisit and Why

It’s the Long and Short Review’s Wednesday Weekly Blog Challenge. The prompt is what entertainment (Books, movies, TV ) wouldn’t you return to. This one is easy for me. I do enjoy both the deep and shallow ends of the entertainment pool.  So I’m not embarassed to say back in the day, I quite enjoyed flicks like Independence Day and True Lies. Indeed, I remember the last summer of my PhD (I had an August dissertation defense date), the university movie theater had a late night showing of Independence Day on July 4th. I worked all day in the library with that as the carrot at the end of the day. I went to the show and realized I might’ve been the only woman in the audience. That was a weird moment. But I enjoyed it. However, Since the terrorist attacks of 9-11, I haven’t been able to rewatch such movies. The blowing up of monuments and skyscrapers no longer has an entertainment value for me. Too much watching of the actual thing on CNN in the aftermath. 

Civil War

I was listening to On The Media about the new movie, Civil War. If you don’t know the movie, it’s about an alternative present/near future America. 

On The Media did a great segment on the movie that you can find here (the segment begins at 35:27). (Confession, I have seen the movie). As Zack Beauchamp, the guest on OTM, describes it, the movie doesn’t care about why there’s civil war. Instead it focuses on the chaos, the total loss of civilization in a civil war, “what happens when social trust breaks down completely. … Even the rules that soldiers are supposed to follow have broken down entirely. Even massacres are a thing that just happens. That’s what life is like in the context of social collapse.” It goes on to discuss how violence becomes not motivated by ideology but “by perceptions of who has control.”

There’s a quote from Thucydides that is often cited as you must know history to avoid it repeating. I always read the Greek as you need to know history to recognize what’s happening when it repeats (ὅσοι δὲ βουλήσονται τῶν τε γενομένων τὸ σαφὲς σκοπεῖν καὶ τῶν μελλόντων ποτὲ αὖθις κατὰ τὸἀνθρώπινον τοιούτων καὶ παραπλησίων ἔσεσθαι, ὠφέλιμα κρίνειν αὐτὰ ἀρκούντως ἕξει. Thus. 1.22.4). And thus it seems natural that listening to this segment, I immediately thought of Thucydides’ description of the civil war in Corcyra, which had broken out admist the larger Peloponnesian War, with different factions supported by different external powers (J.M. Dent’s 1910 translation): 

[3.81.2]Corcyraeans, made aware of the approach of the Athenian fleet and of the departure of the enemy, brought the Messenians from outside the walls into the town, and ordered the fleet which they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbor; and while it was so doing, slew such of their enemies as they laid hands on, dispatching  afterwards as they landed them, those whom they had persuaded to go on board the ships. Next they went to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded about fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. [3.81.3] The mass of the suppliants who had refused to do so, on seeing what was taking place, slew each other there in the consecrated ground; while some hanged themselves upon the trees, and others destroyed themselves as they were severally able. [3.81.4] During seven days that Eurymedon stayed with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those of their fellow-citizens whom they regarded as their enemies: and although the  crime imputed was that of attempting to put down the democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their debtors because of the monies owed to them. [3.81.5] Death thus raged in every shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and  suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus  and died there.

Herodotus had set forth his history as an assertion of justice in the world; Thucydides chronicled the complete break down of justice in light of the wars he chronicled (his Melian Dialogue being perhaps the earliest articulation of might makes right, done as a philosophical dialogue).  Beauchamp on OTM tackles Just War Theory  as underlying the message of the movie: that war is inherently bad (due to killing) and thus “the presumption is that you should not go to war. You need to have a compelling reason to think that the world will be better after you fight.” I’m not sure I have another message here, but as wars and violence seem on the rise around the world, this seemed worth sharing. 

 

Kishōtenketsu

On Tuesday, I mentioned the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie (as one that should suffer damnatio memoriae). M. Night Shyamalan is to blame (no doubt along with a lot of studio-based decisions) for that monstrosity). And thus the post got me thinking about Shyamalan. I only recently learned about the Kishōtenketsu narrative structure and suddenly Shyamalan’s consistent plot twists made more sense to me.

The term Kishōtenketsu comes from the stages of the narrative:

  • Ki: introduction
  • Shō: development
  • Ten: the (plot) twist
  • Ketsu: Conclusion

This four-part structure differs from traditional Western plot structures, which tends to be conflict-oriented. Kishōtenketsu, on the other hand, centers around the twist (Ten), which not confrontation but rather a surprise which reorients audience understanding of meaning of story. Much like Shyamalan does in his movies.

When I first saw The Sixth Sense, I loved it. Then after awhile, I was put off a bit about how all his films (at that point) seemed to have a twist. While I have no idea if Shyamalan is trying to work in the Kishōtenketsu tradition, knowing about it makes me (ironically) look at his works in a different light.

How do you do open exposition?

There are many clever ways to work in open exposition and information dumps. Gormless characters are fabulous for this. Think Neo in The Matrix being introduced to the real world of the red pill. Harry Potter raised by muggles being introduced to the magical world. Or John Cusack’s slack-jawed John Kelso the reporter character in the movie version of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.  It’s a sort of “As you should know but don’t, Bob…” But it doesn’t always work to have a character who doesn’t know what’s going on and stands in for the audience.

I was thinking of this the other day while reading Kate Elliot’s Furious Heaven (the sequel to Unconquerable Sun). Two moments of info dumping stood out to me.

The first was having Sun (the main character) get both lectured to and grilled by her mother, Queen Marshal Eirene, in a didactic manner. Sun is not the gormless character – she already knows the info her mother is imparting. The act is actually back of a power conflict between the two of them. And the book explicitly discusses this (and how annoyed Sun is by her mother). The scene allowed for open exposition in a plausible, natural manner.

In another part of the book, we are told that before every assembly in the Phene empire, there is a ritual of depicting a four minute history lesson. This passes as a propagandistic engendering of patriotism and fits the autocratic nature of the society, but is really just another tool for open exposition.

So those got me thinking of all the ways that authors come up with for open exposition. My least favorite came back to me: Hazel from Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus series who suffered from “blackouts” (flashbacks of repressed past experiences) to accomplish open exposition, only to have her conveniently cured as soon as they were no longer needed.

What interesting ways have you seen open exposition accomplished? How have you gone about it?

Expanding the periodic table

I have this vague memory of a time when Superman became too powerful. He just overwhelmed his own stories. The writers even found a way to get rid of all the kryptonite on Earth. Mistake. Power always needs some balancing for narrative. Some imbalance drives a story. Too much imbalance kills a story. Thus Superman needs kryptonite (and more fell to Earth/was mined from the moon). But not too much kryptonite! I’ve since read this was the motivation for transmuting kryptonite into iron – it seemed like every corner-store robber could have a stash and the writers had to find a way to limit the amount around, lest the imbalance become too great in the other direction.

Fictional elements like kryptonite can play a great role in SFF, but must be employed with care. In my first novel, I didn’t need to invent a fantastic new metal because the events occur during the period when iron was first steeled in the Mediterranean/SWANA regions, allowing it to move from merely a decorative element to weapons grade. A few characters have weapons from this innovative imported metal, giving them an advantage.

But many other fantastical worlds have their own fictional elements that feed into the plot in wonderful – or not so wonderful ways. In addition to find ways check the power of the fictional element, one must also be sure to make them “realistic,” i.e. that the properties are coherent and make sense, and that they serve an inherent function, something that moves them beyond plot devices/macguffins to organic parts of the world building.

This list could be much, much longer, but here are some that came to mind and how their potential power (and thus power imbalances) are handled:

  • Mithril (Tolkein’s Middle Earth) and Beskar (Star Wars, esp. The Mandalorian): Both are prized weapons-grade metals that gives the wearer or wielder a great advantage in battle. In both these cases, the mines from which the metals come now lie out of reach for one reason or another.
  • Dilithium (Star Trek) and Kyber crystals (Star Wars) are both crystalline structures used as power sources for matter/antimatter reactors and light sabers (and Deathstars) respectively. Both are rare. Dilithium cannot be synthesized at a quality level beyond the most rudimentary uses, leaving natural dilithium in demand. The main source of Kyber crystals was first taken over by the Empire and its successor the First Order, then destroyed by the Resistance/New Republic.  But while the Empire controlled the kyber’s main source, it led to a plot-driving imbalance of power (the Death Star and its successors).
  • Adamant (Classical Mythology)/Adamantine (various)/ Adamantium (Marvel Comics and MCU): the strongest, most indestructible metal alloy.   The secrets of this alloy are tightly controlled, thus limiting its occurrences (also at some point, vibranium becomes a component, further limiting it).
  • Vibranium (Marvel Comics/MCU: I hesitate to admit, I have issues with vibranium. I mean, what can’t it do at this point? Fantastic weapons-grade metal, power source (and storage of power as it absorbs and returns power), sound-dampener, mutagen, medicinal. I’m sure the list could go on. It’s become a little much for my taste. But limited in that it has an extra-terrestrial origin and Wakanda and Talokan have a near monopoly on it due to a meteor strikes.
  • Unobtanium (from Cameron’s Avatar movies): I always thought the name unimaginative and that Cameron should have just called it MacGuffinite, but apparently there is some engineering history to the name (see Wikipedia). But its very rareness more than any property inherent in it is the main plot driver and thus does seem a macguffin.
  • Celestial Bronze/Imperial Gold/Stygian Iron/Bone Steel (Rick Riordan’s YA myth books): The first three are rare (bronze mined by cyclopes on Mt. Olympus; gold consecrated in Ancient Rome/tempered in the River Styx) but also limited in their powers (the bronze and gold can’t hurt normal mortals; the iron could but can be only be wielded by the off spring of Hades). The gold also has the danger of exploding. Bone steel has a real history, with bones being used by Vikings for the carbon in the steeling process. I’m not sure it has the same limitations as the bronze and gold, but all four are useful against Demi-gods, monsters, and gods. In a way, they level the playing field rather than imbalancing it. And a brief shout out to stygian ice, which can only be made with the River Styx, is hard to craft, and shatters after one use.

Those were the first to jump to my mind. Do have favorite fictional elements from your own reading/viewing? Have you created some of your own? If so how have you handled them?

From Darkness into Light

So many celebrations this time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere center on the passing of the shortest day of the year and renewal as daylight grows long. While we rejoice at the returning of the light, it is still set against the contrast of the darkness. Thus it is natural to have some melancholy lying underneath the merriment. We also miss those gone or far away. We get nostalgic for what has passed. 

And we see that so much in the best Christmas songs, movies, short stories, books and other celebrations of the season. Here’s just a few of my favorites melancholy celebrations:

Certainly the list could be much longer. If you have a favorite winter holiday melancholy song/poem/movie/story that isn’t included above, please add it in the comments.

Addendum: how timely! NPR had a piece this morning on what’s going on in your brain when you experience nostalgia.

May the Light of the New Year shine brightly on you.

A MidWinter Dawn